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The 2017 Stella Prize shortlist

The book world is currently abuzz with news of the Baileys Prize longlist, but I’m here to talk about another literary award for women writers — and that’s the Stella Prize, the shortlist for which was announced in Australia yesterday.

Heard a lot of good things about the Twitter group… it didn’t work for me, cos, well, time zones. Any chance you could just do it without anyone “official” running it?

Also, reading these books is going to cost me a fortune. The two books I don’t have — Heather Rose and de Saint Phalle — are only available here as Kindle editions at about three times the normal cost.

The Twitter group was great because it was immediate – looking back over tweets because of time zones is a waste of time (I know because I missed two weeks when I was in Hawaii one year and missed one week last year because I was in the Outback and had no phone coverage!). I did wonder about trying to get discussion going without a curator as such…
I’m reading the Rose at the moment – so far, it’s impressive and I can see why a few people I know have declared it their favourite book last year. The Phalle was the one I was least enthusiastic about – I bought it today (it’s also $$ here!). Still, I budget for the Stella Prize shortlist each year so can justify it… How much is the Phalle on Kindle for you? I think it’s about $13 here (still $$ for an ebook).

I know! They were both announced on International Women’s’ Day, so I suppose it makes sense, but the Bailey’s sadly drowns out the Stella by virtue of the fact it’s international (and every second blogger I follow has written about it!)

Well, the Stella never gets coverage outside of Australia anyway (which is why I like to champion it), but it’s a pity its chance to shine on a wider stage is overshadowed by a big international prize like the Baileys Prize.